In Affidavit at Bail Hearing, Track Star Denies He Intended to Kill Girlfriend

PRETORIA, South Africa — Early on Feb. 14, Oscar Pistorius says, he heard a strange noise coming from inside his bathroom, climbed out of bed, grabbed his 9-millimeter pistol, hobbled on his stumps to the door and fired four shots.

“I fail to understand how I could be charged with murder, let alone premeditated,” Mr. Pistorius said in an affidavit read Tuesday to a packed courtroom by his defense lawyer, Barry Roux. “I had no intention to kill my girlfriend.”

Prosecutors painted a far different picture, one of a calculated killer, a world-renowned athlete who had the presence of mind and calm to strap on his prosthetic legs, walk 20 feet to the bathroom door and open fire as his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, cowered inside, behind a locked door.

“The applicant shot and killed an unarmed, innocent women,” Gerrie Nel, the chief prosecutor, said in court on Tuesday. That, Mr. Nel argued, amounted to premeditated murder, a charge that could send Mr. Pistorius to prison for life.

In court, Mr. Pistorius, a Paralympic track star who competed against able-bodied athletes at the London Olympics despite having lost both his lower legs as an infant, wept uncontrollably as Mr. Roux gave the runner’s account of the fateful early morning. At one point, Magistrate Desmond Nair called a recess to allow Mr. Pistorius, who was sobbing loudly, his face contorted, to regain his composure.

“My compassion as a human being does not allow me to just sit here,” Magistrate Nair said.

As the defense and prosecution laid out their competing versions of the shooting, some details were beyond dispute.

Mr. Pistorius and Ms. Steenkamp were alone in the house, having spent the evening there. Around 3 a.m., Mr. Pistorius shot Ms. Steenkamp through the bathroom door, fatally wounding her. He broke down the door and carried her down the stairs, where she died in the foyer of his upscale home in a highly secured compound.

The young woman, a model, was cremated Tuesday on the other side of the country in her hometown, Port Elizabeth. Her family and friends mourned her and called for the authorities to deal harshly with Mr. Pistorius.

“There’s a space missing inside all the people that she knew that can’t be filled again,” her brother, Adam Steenkamp, told reporters after the memorial service.

In court, Mr. Pistorius is seeking bail on the charge of premeditated murder, but he faces an uphill battle. Magistrate Nair ruled Tuesday that the case would be treated as the most serious kind of offense, which means bail will be granted only if the defense can prove extraordinary circumstances requiring it.

The court proceedings, though they concerned only whether Mr. Pistorius would receive bail, offered the first real glimpse into what unfolded at his home on the day of the shooting.

In his affidavit, Mr. Pistorius said that he and Ms. Steenkamp had decided to stay in for the night. He canceled plans with his friends for a night on the town in Johannesburg, while she opted against movies with one of her friends. They had a quiet evening, he said. She did yoga. He watched television. About 10 p.m., they went to sleep.

In the early morning hours, he said, he woke up to move a fan from the balcony and to close the sliding doors in the bedroom.

“I heard a noise in the bathroom and realized that someone was in the bathroom,” he said. “I felt a sense of terror rushing over me.”

He had already said in the affidavit that he feared South Africa’s rampant violent crime, and later added that he was worried because there were no bars on the window to the bathroom. Construction workers had left ladders in his garden, he said.

“I believed someone had entered my house,” he said in the affidavit. “I grabbed my 9-millimeter pistol from underneath my bed. On my way to the bathroom I screamed words to the effect for him/them to get out of my house and for Reeva to phone the police. It was pitch dark in the bedroom, and I thought Reeva was in bed.”

Walking on his stumps, he heard the sound of movement inside the toilet, a small room within the bathroom.

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“It filled me with horror and fear of an intruder,” he said. “I did not have my prosthetic legs on and felt extremely vulnerable. I knew I had to protect Reeva and myself.”

He fired four shots, then hobbled over to the bedroom, screaming for Reeva to call the police. But when he got back to the bed, she was not there.

“That is when it dawned on me that it could have been Reeva who was in the toilet,” he said.

He went back and tried to open the door, he said, but it was locked. He went to the balcony, opened the window and screamed for help. He strapped on his prosthetic legs, ran back to the bathroom and tried to kick in the door. When that did not work, he grabbed a cricket bat.

When he finally got it open, Ms. Steenkamp lay slumped on the floor. She was still alive, he said. Mr. Pistorius called the head of security for the estate and called for an ambulance, he said. He carried Ms. Steenkamp’s body to the foyer.

Photo

Relatives of Oscar Pistorius comforted one another on Tuesday after a hearing was adjourned.Credit
Stephane De Sakutin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“I tried to render the assistance to Reeva that I could, but she died in my arms,” he said. “I am absolutely mortified by the events and the devastating loss of my beloved Reeva.”

Mr. Pistorius described their relationship, which began in November 2012, as a happy one without strife.

“We were deeply in love, and I could not be happier,” he said. “I know she felt the same way.”

Affidavits from friends of Mr. Pistorius made the same point, describing the pair as a well-matched couple contemplating making a life together.

Mr. Nel, the prosecutor, argued that given the sequence of events, the conclusion that Mr. Pistorius intentionally killed Ms. Steenkamp was unshakable.

“Why would a burglar lock himself into a toilet?” Mr. Nel said. “There is no possible explanation to support his report that he thought it was a burglar.”

The court recessed in the midafternoon and will continue to hear evidence in the bail hearing on Wednesday. The prosecution plans to call the police investigator, who is expected to testify about witness accounts of tensions between Mr. Pistorius and Ms. Steenkamp.

Questions about the credibility of Mr. Pistorius’s account of the killing are sure to arise. Why did he not notice that Ms. Steenkamp was not in bed? Why did Ms. Steenkamp not respond to his shouting by identifying herself in the bathroom?

With South Africa’s high rates of violent crime, many people here heard Mr. Pistorius’s fears of an intruder sympathetically.

“When things go bump in the night in Johannesburg or Pretoria, it is a scary moment,” said Antony Altbeker, a researcher who has written extensively about violent crime in South Africa. But even if a judge believes Mr. Pistorius, the shooting could still lead to a murder conviction, Mr. Altbeker said.

“If you wake up in the middle of the night and you see someone over your bed and you shoot them, that’s one thing,” Mr. Altbeker said. But “even if he had shot a burglar, he might still be convicted of murder.”

Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London.

A version of this article appears in print on February 20, 2013, on Page A13 of the New York edition with the headline: In Affidavit at Bail Hearing, Track Star Denies He Intended to Kill Girlfriend. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe